Wine-growers in southern France, eager to alert holidaymakers to the crisis hitting the industry, will hand out 400 000 bottles later this month at toll booths and along rural roads in the region.
Wines produced in the Aude department — in and around Narbonne and Carcassonne — as well as those made in the Languedoc will be given out, especially to tourists vacationing in the Aude, the wine producers’ union said.
The free bottles will bear special labels extolling the virtues of the wine, and producers also will distribute leaflets explaining the current overproduction crisis in France’s wine industry.
A large part of France’s 2004 output remains unsold and Paris has won authorisation from the European Union to convert 1,5-million hectoliters of top-quality ”appellation” wine into spirits via distillation.
Wine-growers fear that another bumper harvest this year will only aggravate the problem.
The world’s biggest wine producer, France is under mounting pressure to reform its industry because of declining consumption at home and intense competition abroad from new producer countries such as Australia and Chile. — Sapa-AFP